Will this law review article “promote DEI values”? Does it cite scholars from “underrepresented groups”? Will it have “any foreseeable impact in enhancing diversity, equity, and inclusion”? And why did one team of editors solicit “only white, male authors”?
Those are some of the questions that editors at the Harvard Law Review asked in internal documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The documents, which span more than four years and have not been previously reported, include article evaluations, training materials, and data on the race and gender of journal authors. They reveal a pattern of pervasive race discrimination at the nation’s top law journal and threaten to plunge Harvard, already at war with the federal government, into even deeper crisis.
The law review states on its website that it considers race only in the context of an applicant’s personal statement. But according to dozens of documents obtained by the Free Beacon—including lists of every new policy adopted by the law review since 2021—race plays a far larger role in the selection of both editors and articles than the journal has publicly acknowledged.
Just over half of journal members, for example, are admitted solely based on academic performance. The rest are chosen by a “holistic review committee” that has made the inclusion of “underrepresented groups”—defined to include race, gender identity, and sexual orientation—its “first priority,” according to resolution passed in 2021.
